Recently, Dan Nielsen, the Director of Socially Responsible Investing at Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS) released an “Action Alert” encouraging people to sign a letter to media companies asking these companies to stop distributing pornography. CBIS is an investment management firm with approximately $3.6 billion in assets under management for more than 1,000 Catholic institutions worldwide. In the letter, Mr. Nielsen cites the Witherspoon Institute’s study on “The Social Costs of Pornography.” Nielsen asks companies such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DIRECTV, Dish Network, and Cablevision to “1) Stop distributing pornographic programs, and 2) Improve public disclosure of potential business risks and revenues earned from distributing pornography.” This letter serves as a warning to these media companies about the growing legal and reputational risk that pornography production and distribution will face as the information in the Witherspoon report becomes more widely known. Not everyone may have the money or time to have an impact through socially responsible investing, but signing onto the letter represents an excellent opportunity to bolster CBIS’s efforts to encourage publicly-traded media companies to stop distributing pornography.

I just signed on to the letter, and you should too. But don't wait — the deadline to sign on is today, Friday, October 29.